These Quiet Nights
by Kaiyote
Summary: Two weeks. Time holds no meaning for him anymore, in a place like this, and so the seconds and hours slowly leave him. Set before and during Godsend.


**If you want to read a better-formatted version, please go to my Fanfiction Livejournal _theblackmonster._**

**A/N:** Because being drugged and in a room for two weeks (or so) is great times. Or not, whatever. And _the man_ in this would be Peter, because I don't really state it in the fic. ... At all. And the title is from _Love Is Like Clock Law_ by Gary Numan. Uh, not that anyone probably cares.

Also, spoilers for _Godsend_.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Heroes.

**Warnings: **None, really.

**These Quiet Nights**

* * *

Two weeks.

Time holds no meaning for him anymore, in a place like this, and so the seconds and hours slowly leave him.

The days pass in an artificial light that is never quite bright enough, and the nights pass in a darkness that is never quite true enough to the darkness he is so familiar with.

He longs for the faithful tick and tock as he never had before.

But that had been before, when it had still been his and when he had still belonged to it. When it had still been his own, his very own, and no one else had lay claim to it quite like he had.

It had been something so familiar to him, something he could hold onto.

Before and after have never been the same thing, though, and now the world is quiet.

Silent.

* * *

Two weeks, and he can barely even move his own body.

He breathes, and half-way through it's as if his body forgets how to continue the motions and the movements of breathing. Only when his vision starts blurring at the edges does his body ever remember to continue the act.

He breathes in again and his body forgets once again.

He blinks, once.

The darkness in the room before turns into light, now, and he can hear the men speaking of him. They do not understand him at all, and this- _this_ is almost worth not having the ability to move. It's almost worth forgetting how to breathe.

He can see the men, even if he cannot exactly see them. But he can still _see_ them, as he can see himself and every other person in the world. As he can see every other thing in the world with pieces that can be broken and put back together.

But everything in the world can be broken, and everything can be put back together again.

He blinks.

The men are gone, taking the light with them and leaving only darkness in their wake. He doesn't care for the light, though, and he only hopes the shadows will grow darker in the absence of the men.

They never do.

* * *

A flash of dark eyes watching him.

He doesn't exactly know the first time it happens.

But then time has no meaning in the room, after all, and the only thing he knows now is the room. In the end it probably doesn't matter when it starts, because he knows the only thing that really matters is how everything ends.

A glimpse of dark hair falling forward into those dark eyes.

It's only a glimmer, though.

Only a flicker of something that isn't really there in the first place. Almost like a flick of a switch, a turn of the lights going on and off. Something in the corner of his eyes that he can only see if he doesn't look for it in the first place.

He never truly sees the man he knows is there.

He still _sees_, though, and pieces of the man that _could_ fit back together again do not necessarily mean that they _will_ end up fitting back together. It only means that there is a possibility that they will.

And people are always better at breaking things than they are repairing them.

* * *

The man speaks, once.

Although it is probably less like speaking as the man is not really there. It's more like the broken pieces of the man he can see form something new, something that does not need words to speak.

A piece of artwork where words are not needed to comprehend what it means.

_This isn't where I'm supposed to be. This isn't what I'm supposed to be._

He opens his mouth to speak, but he does not. His mind knows _speak_, and the thought reaches his brain, but that is the only thing that happens. His body rebels, it cannot remember _speak_.

It is weak.

_He_ is not.

The man understands what he means, though, even if he cannot say the words that he had meant to say. It occurs to him then that the man is like himself in the way that _he_ is himself.

They both can see the broken pieces.

There is something terrifying in this, yet something comforting.

Terrifying in the way the that he could stop being _only himself_ if there were one other person in the world like him, comforting in the way that being alone never can be.

The man leaves, then, and it feels like he takes all of their broken pieces with him.

But taking away half of the broken pieces does not make something whole, and there is an emptiness inside of him that he had never thought could be felt before.

* * *

The man returns.

He is darker this time, and the lights in the room seem to flicker. The men glance up at them nervously, look at him, but he does not look back. Not so much because he cannot look to them, but because he knows the action is not caused by himself.

The men leave, the lights quickly follow.

The broken pieces of the man are not as they were before, and it feels to him as if the man had tried to repair them, but never knew exactly where they were supposed to be in the first place.

He could break so easily once again, and he feels the need to fix the man in front of him. It's not as if the man is so much different from one of his timepieces, either. The need to fix that which is broken could almost cause his fingers to twitch.

The man whispers _I don't need you to put me back together again. I'm not yours to fix._

He tries to breathe out _Everything is mine to fit back together again and mine to break_ but nothing comes from him, not a sound, and the room is far too quiet.

_Work on fixing yourself_.

The man leaves, and he knows he will not return to this room or to him again. It should anger him, but the words make him feel more like laughing than any other emotion he should be experiencing right now.

He tries to laugh.

He remembers he won't know how.

The room is silent.


End file.
